Author: Daniel Fox

In this issue:
• AIA Contract Documents In-person Workshop @ AIA National
• e-Calendar

AIA Contract Documents In-person Workshop @ AIA National
Are you thinking about making the switch from paper to digital Contract Documents, or a new user interested in learning more about AIA Contract Documents and Software? AIA National is hosting an in-person course geared towards prospective and new customers of AIA Contract Documents software and agreements. AIA staff will train participants in content, software, and popular forms. Using comprehensive contract documents is the most important thing you can do to protect your project, minimize risk, and avoid costly litigation. Learn more about the course here.

The AIA also recently launched a new, one-stop educational portal featuring webinars, podcasts, on-demand continuing education courses, FAQs, guides, and more. To learn more and view upcoming events, please visit www.aia.org/docucation.

Still like your paper documents? As always, you can stop by the AIANY office at 536 LaGuardia Place to purchase paper documents from Eve Dilworth Rosen, AIANY Office Manager (info@aiany.org; 212.358.6113).

eCALENDAR
eCalendar includes an interactive listing of architectural events around NYC. Click the link to go to to eCalendar on the Web.

As a part of the AIANY Oculus Book Talk Series, Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, presented his latest book, Five North American Architects: An Anthology by Kenneth Frampton (Lars Muller Publishers, 2012) at the Center for Architecture [editor’s note: read the Oculus Book Review here]. The book is the result of a symposium held at Columbia University during the fall of 2010 to commemorate his 80th birthday. The subjects of the program included: Stanley Saitowitz, Brigitte Shim + Howard Sutcliffe, Rick Joy, John + Patricia Patkau, and Steven Holl, FAIA, the subjects of his book.

In June, Miguel Baltierra, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, interviewed Frampton. Here is an excerpt of his full interview:

Miguel Baltierra: On 11.10. 10, Columbia University hosted a symposium in celebration of your 80th birthday. All the architects featured in the book presented their work, and then participated in a one-hour discussion with you and the audience. What did you wish to accomplish and communicate to the profession about the five architecture firms you picked to represent North America?

Kenneth Frampton: I’m not sure I really had any a priori idea of communicating anything in particular, but I suppose these five could be seen to representing North American practitioners, who perhaps have values that might be associated with what I once tried to define, along with Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, as “critical regionalism.” Although I barely mention that in the introductory text…it is fairly obvious that there is this connection. So that is perhaps one unconscious attempt to recognize that aspect in the North American continent.

I suppose though, it’s important to admit at the outset…that this selection – why these five and not others – is always difficult to explain…Part of my raison d’etre if selecting these five is connected to the way in which we normally define North America. I don’t think it is unfair to say for my colleagues here at Columbia or maybe for many architects here in New York City and not only in New York City, that the term “North America,” consciously or unconsciously, is generally construed as being the United States. I wish in this case by choosing two Canadian architects and three architects from the United States, to somehow polemically illustrate the fact that, strictly speaking, North America is Canada and the United States together and not simply the U.S.

…

I have been and I am still very much impressed by the quality of Canadian work. Not everything of course, but I think there are four or five truly significant architectural practices in Canada…So that explains the choice of John and Patricia Patkau of Vancouver and Bridgette Shim and Howard Sutcliff in Toronto.

In terms of the other three practices…I had a regional notion in my head to choose one East Coast figure. That was Steven Holl, my colleague here at Columbia University. He is quite clearly an incredibly talented and distinguished architect and, for that matter, a loyal friend….I thought that Stanley Saitowitz could be said to represent the West Coast…and then the third, of the three American’s, was Rick Joy in Tucson, Arizona.

…

MB: What examples can you share of the exceptional values they demonstrate?

KF: Although the symposium took place almost two years ago, there is something very topical happening right now, almost by accident. These five architects will be featured in the coming Venice Biennale, curated by David Chipperfield, opening at the end of August. I think of it as a prologue to answering that question…I might say that it is almost by accident, but not entirely by accident.

The five have been invited to participate in this international exhibition and the main reason was the publication of the book…I sent a copy to David Chipperfield. And on the strength of that he decided to invite the five as exemplifying what he has generally called “common ground” as the theme of the forthcoming biennale. It alludes to this idea of common ground: what is it they have in common?

In my introductory text of the book, I felt the need to spell out what that was…landscape, material, structure, craft, space, and light…As an afterthought in the same text, I thought all of them share some propensity for typological invention. These terms were to be picked up by Steven Holl in subsequent discussions with me with particular regards to the forthcoming exhibition we are trying to curate together for the biennale.

In this issue:
• From the Desk of the President: Advocacy Update
• e-Calendar

From the Desk of the President: Advocacy Update

Each month I update you on our advocacy work on your behalf and focus on a key issue on which we have made progress. I would like to take this opportunity to provide an update on the chapter’s broader policy advocacy efforts. Following are highlights from the first half of this year:

• Housing Development Project Reporting Bill: The New York City Council passed Int. 730-A on July 26 to require the disclosure of information regarding construction projects funded through the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Originally, the bill would have required architects to report on the wages received and paid to their employees for projects with HPD. After providing testimony for the hearing and advocating with elected officials and proponents, architectural services were removed from these onerous reporting requirements.

• HPD/HDC Architect’s Statement: The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) requires certain certifications regarding a building project’s compliance. These proposed certifications would have made a project virtually impossible for architects to certify compliance. AIANY advocated for and achieved several changes in the final form that significantly improve it in terms of fairness for our members.

• Green Roof Tax Abatement: David Bragdon, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, invited us to be a part of stakeholder meetings that will occur in the fall on the expiring green roof tax abatements.

• Streamlining the Regulatory Review Process: In support of the efforts to streamline the regulatory review process and support the Department of Buildings’ (DOB) efforts to make the NYC Development HUB a success, AIANY has discussed potential media opportunities focused on the HUB with the DOB press office around future funding for the HUB.

• Via Verde: AIANY Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA, stood alongside Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at the Ribbon Cutting for Via Verde, the new affordable housing project that promotes environmental responsibility and healthy living in which AIANY had significant input.

• Letters to Senators: We wrote to Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand to express opposition to efforts that weaken or eliminate sustainable design policies for federal buildings. We support design that reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and the energy and water appropriations bill recently approved by the House would stifle these efforts.

• Environmental Protection: In June, Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA, presented testimony to the New York City Council Committee on Environmental Protection in support of Int. 694, legislation which seeks to facilitate the development of geothermal as a viable alternative energy source for the city. His testimony described the benefits of using geothermal technology, as the Center for Architecture at 536 LaGuardia Place has utilized geothermal ground source wells for the past ten years.

• NYU Core Project: AIANY provided testimony at the NYC Planning Commission and New York City Council Land Use Sub-Committee hearings on the New York University Core Project application. The goal for New York University’s expansion is to secure a better future for the next generation of NYU students, faculty and researchers, while carefully incorporating the new buildings into the existing urban fabric.

• Co-Signed Letter with the Mayor: We cosigned a letter with Mayor Bloomberg to Secretary of the Department of Energy Steven Chu on American National Standards Institute Standards (ANSI) for Energy Specialists. The letter urged the Department to ensure high quality, energy efficient certifications in the buildings of America’s growing workforce.

If you have questions or comments on our policy efforts or to find out how you can be involved, please be in touch with Jay Bond, Policy Director, jbond@aiany.org, at the AIA New York Chapter.

Sincerely,

Joseph J. Aliotta, AIA, LEED AP
President
AIA New York Chapter

eCALENDAR
eCalendar includes an interactive listing of architectural events around NYC. Click the link to go to to eCalendar on the Web.

On Monday, July 2, 2012, Miguel Baltierra, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, interviewed John Hill, the author of Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture. Hill recently presented his book at the Center for Architecture as a part of AIANY’s Oculus Book Talk Series. Here is an excerpt of the interview, which can be heard in its entirety here.

Hello this is Miguel Angel Baltierra on Monday July 2nd, 2012. Today architect, author and critic John Hill, Joins me today to discuss his first book “Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture,” published by W.W. Norton & Company. He is presently Adjunct Professor at the New York Institute of Technology. In 1999 John began his website: “A Weekly Dose of Architecture” and then began a blog “A Daily Dose of Architecture” in 2004. John’s blog presently attracts over 32,000 visitors per week. He is also the founder of “The Archi-tourist” and is the US Representative/Editor of World-Architects.com.

“Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture” highlights more than 200 buildings completed since the year 2000, a decade when a veritable building boom gripped the city, giving rise to a host of new – and architecturally cutting-edge – residential, corporate, institutional, academic, and commercial structures.

MB: Thanks for being here John!

JH: Thanks for having me.

MB: Tomorrow I have friends coming to visit New York City for five days. I am going to hand them your guide and send them on their way. What should I tell them is the primary benefit of this guide to any other on New York and what would you wish for them to get out of it after they return it to me?

JH: New York City has enough layers – historical, physical, social, and so forth – that no single guide can provide a comprehensive overview and therefore be necessarily more valuable than another one. By focusing on recent architecture, my guide highlights changes to the city that find expression in architectural form: Be it the rise of the starchitect, the condo-ization of parts of the city, the increased awareness of green building, and so forth. I would hope that your friends understand and maybe even appreciate the new buildings they might not have otherwise paid attention to in their visit to the city. On some of the walking tours I’ve given, people have commented that they have noticed certain buildings in the past, but they never knew why there were significant or why they looked the way they do. Hopefully the book will pique their interest and give them some background on notable buildings and spaces, and get them to explore parts of the city they might not have otherwise visited.

MB: What parameters were critical for selecting the buildings in the guide?

JH: The main criteria was that the building or space be public in some way, be it a façade on a street, a publicly accessible interior, or an accessible outdoor space…

Be sure to listen to all of the Oculus Quick Takes here!